Dem Senator Blasts Trump Over Shutdown: He Was Listening to ‘Very Loud Voices of Fox News’

On Friday, Sen. Mazie Hirono spoke with CNN’s Jim Acosta, who was filling in for Wolf Blitzer, about the lingering shutdown.

During the conversation, Acosta asked Hirono about the White House’s claim that Democrats are reluctant to end the shutdown in order to help Nancy Pelosi secure speakership over the House.

Acosta was referring to the fact on Friday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaneysaid on Fox News that shutdown talks were stalled because Pelosi did not have the votes for speaker and thus “cannot be seen by her party as being weak on negotiating with Donald Trump.”

“Are Senate Democrats ready, in fact, to strike a deal?” Acosta asked. “Are you being held up in some way?”

Hirono was not buying the White House’s claims.

“I’m pretty sure, [she] already has the votes. If there is somebody who knows how to count, it’s Nancy Pelosi,” she said.

Then the senator pointed out that the Pelosi excuse was just “another example of how Trump wants to lay the blame on everybody else.”

The senator from Hawaii then stressed that Trump — and his Fox News habits — are really to blame for the shutdowm.

“When the shutdown came about, because the president basically went back on an understanding that both the U.S. House and the Senate had, when the Senate voted to keep government running until February in a voice vote, no less,” she explained.

She then added: “That vote went to the House and suddenly President Trump watching Fox News and listening to the very loud voices of Fox News, got afraid, basically, and said, well, I’m not going to do this. And notice that he’s not accepting responsibility for the government shutdown, which he said he would. So to me, it’s sad.”